Saturday, October 25, 2008

Our New Home

Yup, that's right we've moved. Welcome to our new family blog!

The time has come to shift things and start another blog, this will help keep business and pleasure separate for the most part. I've moved a few of my earlier posts here so I didn't have to start completely fresh.

We are a family of four, my husband, myself and our two boys who we will call ME and CJ - they are 5 and 8 years old. We are homeschoolers, very relaxed and pretty close to being unschoolers, We believe that children need to just be children, they need to freely explore the world around them.

Before becoming a Mom I was a preschool teacher and I was taught that children learn best by doing and being allowed to follow their natural curiosity. This is what I'm calling natural learning, its what comes naturally. I studied Bev Bos while earning my degree in Early Childhood Education. You can't force a child to learn something they have no interest in, it goes in one ear and out the other. Children will learn when they are ready, not when someone else decides its time all 8 year olds need to multiply or learn world history.

So my job as a homeschooling Mom is to allow my children to freely explore what interests them for the most part. It is my job to provide a rich learning environment where curiosity is abundant. It is my job to encourage new ideas.

It is not my place to force my children to sit down for hours everyday and do "school work". I do not want to halt their natural learning process, I want to encourage it and help in grow. Does this mean my children are allowed to just do whatever they want whenever they want? No it does not. Children need guidance, they need love and understanding, they need us to help them in their journey. I don't believe in unparenting!

Do we sit around and do nothing all day? No we enjoy lots of wonderful activities with other homeschoolers. We are blessed to have a wonderful support group and resources available to use in our community. We attend weekly park days, weekly art classes, tennis lessons, marine biology, homeschool science class at the museum and so much more. Co-ops with other families and endless learning opportunities are available to us. We even have the choice to attend monthly field trips with our group.

I hope this helps you understand a liitle bit about who we are and what we do. Follow us in our journey as we learn and grow together as a family.

1 comment:

Jessie V said...

brava! we unschool, and it is a glorious journey. are you coming to the winter unschoolers waterpark gathering in feb in sanduskY?